3-Read Friday #116
Taylor Swift analogies, winning the argument, and colliding principles
Here are three blog posts I found interesting this week:
1. Why personalising education based on student interests doesn’t work by Daisy Christodoulou
The promise that AI will finally “personalise” learning is everywhere right now, so I loved reading a proper, evidence-grounded pushback. Christodoulou argues that personalising lessons around student interests — teaching equations “through the medium of Taylor Swift” — fundamentally misunderstands how analogies work. The link to prior knowledge has to fit the content, not the learner’s hobby.
2. Why Knowledge-Rich Curriculum Never Wins by Robert Pondiscio
It’s written about American schools, but every one of these obstacles will feel familiar to anyone who’s championed a knowledge-rich curriculum over here. Pondiscio argues that the evidence war over knowledge-rich curriculum is won — cognitive science, the science of reading, even AI all confirm it. So why does it keep losing in practice? Robert shares 19 reasons!
3. Lessons Worth Arguing About by Becky Allen
One for my fellow maths geeks to finish. Allen argues that teachers keep arguing about how to introduce negative numbers or fractions not because the profession is muddled, but because these first-encounter lessons are where sound instructional principles collide.
Have a great weekend!
Craig
🏃🏻♂️Before you go, have you… 🏃🏻♂️
… checked out my brand-new book series: The Tips for Teachers guides to…
And checked out my Ultimate Retrieval Tool page on my Mr Barton Maths website
